Education Is A SCAM w/ Zuby | PBD Podcast | Ep. 176
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PBD Podcast Episode 176. In this episode, Patrick Bet-David is joined by Zuby, Tom Ellsworth, and Adam Sosnick. They discuss the truth about university and education and how we can reform it, Tiger Woods turning down $800 million to play in the Saudi-backed LIV golf league, GEICO closing all California locations, and California providing 'safe injection sites' for heroin users.
For Zuby's new children's book "The Candy Calamity" - https://bit.ly/3BWYE2T
For Zuby's book "Strong Advice" - https://bit.ly/3zVtuXT
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Patrick Bet-David is the founder and CEO of Valuetainment Media. He is the author of the #1 Wall Street Journal bestseller Your Next Five Moves (Simon & Schuster) and a father of 2 boys and 2 girls. He currently resides in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.
0:00 - Start
19:14 - Why is the US obsessed with credit?
31:41 - Why banks refuse to fund college loans
44:26 - Should we change the education system?
1:04:57 - Tiger Woods turns down 800 million offer to play for Saudi backed golf league
1:21:46 - Does the PGA have a monopoly on Golf?
1:27:35 - GEICO closes all California locations
1:34:37 - Are tensions rising between Ukraine and the White House?
1:42:58 - California is funding heroin injections sites in Los Angeles and San Francisco
Why would you fat on Jolieth when we got bet daily?
Value payment, giving values contagious.
This world of entrepreneurs, we get no value to hate it.
I need running, homie, look what I become.
I'm the one.
What is this?
Is the commercial on?
Okay, it's my iPad, actually.
Hey, hello, hello, hello.
So today is what?
Episode 176 with the great Zuby in town.
I can't even say from where.
It's just you're in town because who knows where you live nowadays, right?
You're traveling all over the world.
Yeah, man.
I'm doing nomadic things.
So from the UK.
From the UK via Saudi Arabia, via Nigeria.
But I've just been on the road now for the past 15, 16 months.
And how do you like that?
It makes sense for now.
It's not a forever thing.
But the thing is, even if I had an house or an apartment, I'd virtually never be there.
You would virtually never be there.
I'd essentially never be there.
No, literally never be there.
You're getting dudes down the road.
I'd barely ever be there.
Yeah, because I'm just doing events and speaking and performing and just doing stuff all over the place.
I love it.
I mean, if it's like a, it's a good life for a bachelor.
Hard when you get married with kids.
It's going to be challenging to say, hey, kids.
So where do we live, Daddy?
Nowhere.
We're just everything.
In a van down by the river.
In the nearest hotel.
You always tell the story about when you took the road trip for how long on the day?
RB, 30 days.
Yeah.
And you had kids and you were married at the time, right?
Yeah.
I was married and we had two kids.
Now you got four.
Tico and Dylan.
Matter of fact, I think Dylan was just born when we went on the RV tour.
And was he?
Something like that.
No, he was a year old or something, but we went all over the place with the RV and had a great time.
But I slept in the same bed pretty much every night in that RV.
In the RV.
Zubi just said that he hasn't stayed in the same place for more than what, two weeks?
Yeah, two, three weeks.
Three weeks.
Yeah.
But I mean, look, I know that the world's been in a weird place for the past two and a half years.
Stuff has been more, in most places, more normal over the last six months.
But I had no idea where stuff was going to go.
So for a whole host of different reasons.
I mean, I think long term, I never planned to live in the UK long term anyway.
I still don't actually know where I'm going to live long term.
It might end up being multiple places, but I knew it wasn't going to be the UK.
And then when stuff just started going nuts over there last year, that was just kind of the straw that broke the camel's back.
And I was just like, you know what, for my own protection as well, I need to get out of this country.
And the flexibility is, it's for a lot of reasons.
It's for career reasons, but also it's just like, I like knowing, okay, if stuff hits the fan anywhere, I can just be out.
I can just be gone.
I don't feel firmly rooted somewhere because to me, that's like an anchor.
I don't even own a lot of possessions.
Like I don't own much.
I can have.
It'll change when you get married.
Yeah, I'm sure it will.
And I'm also hyper-aware that that's in the cards for the future.
So I'm like, okay, right now, I'm at this very unique time in my life right now where I can do this.
I've got the financial freedom to do it.
I have the career freedom to do it.
I have no dependence right now.
Now's the time.
You know, the world is weird.
Stuff is chopping and changing and it's very unpredictable.
Now's the time to do this.
Let me add on to that because you hit the nail on the head.
You said flexibility.
I talk about this all the time, especially if you're not married and don't have kids.
I know you guys are married and have kids, so it's going to be a lot harder for you.
But I talk about having low overhead and high flexibility, key to life these days.
Things are moving so fast, especially with COVID lockdowns.
You don't know where you're moving.
You don't know where you're going.
If you don't have those dependents that you have to actually pay for and they rely upon you, why wouldn't you just kind of keep your head on a swivel and keep it moving and pursue the best possible opportunity?
It sounds exactly what it is.
And it's fun.
It's fun, too.
I mean, it's cool just to be, I mean, in two, you know, two weeks from now, I can just be like, you know what?
Let me just go to this place.
Let me just go there.
I went to Mexico City a couple months ago, just on a whim.
I went to Antalya, Turkey, spent some time in Dubai.
How old are you?
I'm 35.
35.
Yeah, I'll actually be 36 in a.
So the plans are eventually to get married.
Oh, for sure.
Unlike Adam, you do plan on one day.
100%, no doubt.
We're on the same picture.
I would like to get married.
You know what's crazy?
I was watching a video clip popped up today of Jordan Peterson, and he says, man is selfish until he has kids because you don't know what life is like until you have kids and you're thinking about somebody else where you're willing to die or live for that other human being.
I sat there, I'm thinking to myself, I'm like, okay, let's see if there's credibility to this.
You know, because a lot of times married people want to sell singles to be married.
Divorced people want to sell married people to be divorced.
Single people want to sell married people on being single.
You know, people with kids want to sell people on having kids.
People with no kids want to sell people on not having kids.
Everybody is, you know, everybody's.
You want to indoctrinate others to your world?
That's right.
You're not going to push them away.
But if you really think about it, like, you know, the argument of kids, no kids, does having kids really change your life in a dramatic way?
Like if I, right now while we're doing the podcast, you saw my boys were here and they're upstairs.
They're taking a Udemy class, nine hours on how to do a Final Cut Pro.
Okay.
And that's kind of what they're going through right now.
But 2011, I had, the last time I had no kids was 2011.
And how life was wired then versus today, a lot more freedom.
You can do a lot more things.
Two things that kind of locks you down.
One is starting a new business where you have to show up on a daily basis.
And two is when you have kids.
Those two things.
And let me tell you, it is not, it's responsibility at the highest level.
But today's argument is also, do you really want to have kids in today's climate?
Do you really want to have kids with what's going on today?
That's the challenge.
If you're somebody, I feel this morning I was listening to an a cappella song that just totally messed me up.
Okay.
I listened to it 50 times.
All morning.
A matter of fact, I had him listen to it.
I'm crying to it.
I'm crying.
Camera guy's crying.
This podcast this morning, and it's a song by Imagine Dragons, Bad Liar, and it's a buck 26, minute 26 on YouTube or Instagram.
And then I'm listening to this song, and then I go play it for Dylan.
And I tell Dylan, I said, Dylan, you know, there are certain gifts God gives you.
That's not yours.
It's the world.
This is what he means.
I said, if you got a great voice, you got to share it with the world.
You can't just keep it to yourself.
You got to share it with the world.
If you are somebody that's a leader and somebody that's got strong values and principles, we probably need more men like you to raise kids because you would raise better kids in a society like this where not only would the world benefit from it, your last name would benefit from it.
Your heritage would benefit from it.
That's the processing for me with kids.
There are certain men that I'll say, dude, don't have kids.
Go ahead, bro.
Stay single the rest of your life.
But certain people, you're like, look, those values being duplicated amongst one, two, three, four other people, I wonder what the world would be with you having more kids.
So sometimes the wrong people are having too many kids.
Yeah.
That's a whole other issue.
That's a whole nother issue.
Exactly.
Anyways, let's go into the topic.
It's good to have Zubi here.
We got a lot of topics to cover today.
It's myself, Adam, Zubi, and Tom also here on.
So Tom, say hello to everybody.
I'm sorry, Lewis Hamilton.
Hamilton is in the house yourself.
That's Tom.
Believe that for a second.
I have deep respect for the newest minority owner of the Denver Broncos.
Is that Lewis Hamilton?
Lewis Hamilton is in the ownership group of the American football team.
I love it.
Okay, let's go through some of these things here.
First of all, big news, concerning news: U.S. sanctions Putin's reputed girlfriend.
Okay, we're going to have to talk about that.
Yes, China would go to war over Taiwan.
Gallup surprised Supreme Court approval ticks up after the end of Rove.
Deep mistrust has developed between White House and Zelensky.
It's an interesting story.
California to fund heroin injection sites in LA, Oakland, and San Francisco.
Pelosi says U.S. will not abandon Taiwan as China plans military drills.
Americans are pulling up credit card debt as they struggle to keep up with the high cost of living.
U.S. household debt surpasses $16 trillion on higher mortgages.
Michael Saylor, who we had on the podcast a couple months ago, steps down on MicroStrategy.
CEO after they take a $917 million charge on Bitcoin.
That's a Yahoo Finance story.
Robin Hood lays off 23% of their staff as retail investors.
Fade from platform.
Reality bites.
Coddle Tech staff are working harder is job number one.
CNN is having a hard time.
They lost substantial sum of money as ratings plummet.
Geico closes all California offices, lays off workers.
Forbes said to explore sale.
Adam, $630 million.
Let's come up with that.
Let's do something.
Jared Kushner claims Donald Trump tried intimidating him by saying that Tom Brady was also interested in Ivanka, which I love that's a salesman.
I mean, you got to be.
Equifax sentence.
We'll get to the story.
Inaccurate credit on millions of consumers.
And then Tiger Woods turns down $700,080 million offer from Liv, which is, can you imagine being in a situation where you can turn down?
You know what?
I'm good.
I won't take that $700,08 million.
We'll get into that as well.
But let's talk about consumer debt, Tom.
Americans are piling up credit card debt as they struggle to keep up with the high cost of living.
So let's see what these numbers look like.
There we go.
U.S. household debt increased by 2%.
No, that's not the one.
Okay, there it is.
U.S. household debt surpassed $16 trillion for the first time ever during the second quarter.
The New York Federal Reserve said Tuesday, even as borrowing costs surged, the New York Fed said credit card balance increased by $46 billion last quarter.
Over the past year, credit card debt has jumped by $100 billion or 13%, the biggest percentage increase in more than 20 years.
Credit cards typically charge high interest rates when balances aren't fully paid off, making this an expensive form of debt.
High inflation is also making it more expensive to carry a debt credit card balance because the Federal Reserve is aggressively raising borrowing costs.
Tom, what is really happening here with debt?
Well, the big headline on $16 trillion of total household debt, what you have to do is back off mortgages a little bit.
Here's a quick little case study for people.
Whenever you look at mortgage debt, you hear the word debt and mortgage.
If housing prices are higher and people put 20% down, then the mortgage will be higher.
But these could be mortgages are perfectly good and people are paying their payments and everything, but the mortgage debt number will be higher.
What really jumped out to me was the credit card debt.
That 13% increase is the largest increase in credit card debt over a one-year period in 22 years.
That's huge.
The other side of it is, right now, delinquency only ticked up a half a percent.
So delinquency on credit cards was up, but it's only a half a percent.
It's up very little.
It reminds me, and we've mentioned this in the last couple of podcasts, the movie The Big Short, how things were moving slowly and then they suddenly popped.
I think the big thing to look at right now is delinquency because you also look at that.
I was looking at a credit card stat site.
I'm not going to say who because they kind of disagreed with two other statistics, but I think that this one was right.
And they were saying that right now, if credit card debt for the individual goes up another 17 to 20 percent, you're going to start to see delinquency because it's at the max point that they've been looking on the ability to make money.
That's a good stat to know.
Like, I would want to know how much, you know how you have like a $10,000 credit card limit, but you're at $7,500.
But maybe you can make the payment just fine.
Yeah, but what I'm trying to say is I wonder if there's a way to figure out how much total credit card debt is out there and what the limit is.
Like, let's just say, you know how it says $16 trillion or whatever the number is, $16 trillion.
That's total, total, total, total, all debt combined.
$16 trillion.
Is that credit card debt?
No, That's how all debt.
Okay.
That's how it is.
So of that $16 trillion, to Tom's point, 10 of it is mortgages.
So do some basic math.
What's 10 out of 16?
Well, then you're going to have 16 levels.
You're going to have some other stuff.
No, of course.
Well, what I'm saying is I want to know how much, where are we at?
Are we at 70%?
Are we at 80%?
Are we going to get to the 10-year-old credit card limit?
Yeah.
So if your limit is 10K, if your debt in it is $7,000, that's 70%, right?
I wonder where we're at.
Because as that gets higher and higher, the other thing that happens is, you know, like the whole thing with quantitative tightening, credit card companies are going to start also lowering their limit for people.
That's absolutely correct.
Right now, if delinquency goes up one full percentage point, went up a half a point, but if it goes up one full percentage point and a quarter, the credit card companies go to the lower credit score people and they will lower that number by 10%.
So if you had a $30,000 credit card, it's going to drop down.
You're going to get a statement that says your credit limit is now $27,000.
So they lower it 10%.
So as soon as you see delinquency go up by 1% in one month, credit card companies are going to quickly flip the knob over to prevent people from borrowing past the last 10% for the lower half of people holding credit cards.
There's the answer to your question.
So we are very, very, very, very close to that point.
Another 15, 20 points of personal credit card debt.
So if you have 8,000 debt in your house, another 20 points is $9,600.
You're not too far away.
And what if you've got energy prices, you're doing $300,040 a month?
You're only three to four months from that creeping up simply because of inflation cost of living.
And at that point, delinquency rate will go up.
Credit card companies are going to turn down.
So I think we're less than a quarter away from starting to see those stats on consumer spending because it's all right here.
I'll put it in basic terms.
I have, with my brother in the car, we bonked the car on the side of the garage and we screwed up the front fender.
My mom is upset, but my dad's not home yet.
But three hours from now, life's going to get real for my brother and I.
And I think that's the kind of thing that's going on right now.
It's 5 o'clock.
Yeah, it's 5 o'clock.
And when dad comes in, and when dad walks in at 7.30, mom's pissed, the car is messed up.
My brother and I are sitting quietly at the kitchen table.
Life gets real.
You think that's really where we are right now?
So, Zubi, you're traveling all over the place.
What are you hearing people saying about debt and the current financial situation?
Not a lot.
I'm not having a lot of conversations about it, to be honest.
What I was just thinking, I mean, these numbers are pretty mind-blowing.
One thing that's always perplexed me about the USA as a non-American is the way the obsession with credit.
I find it really weird.
Like, I've never even owned a credit card before, and I don't.
I don't even understand the purpose of them.
And to some people, that even sounds weird, but just like the obsession with.
Dave Ramsey will appreciate what you're saying.
Yeah, but just like the obsession with credit.
You've never owned a credit card.
No, I don't even, why would I?
I don't see the point.
I have cash.
But everything in the U.S. runs on debt.
Everything's debt and credit.
And it's, I think maybe people here think it's normal, but it's not a global norm to the degree it is here.
There's so many people stack up credit cards, this obsession with credit scores.
And like, I don't even, you don't even hear about credit scores in the US.
Can you pull up while he's doing that, an Adam Response?
Can you pull up top credit card by country style?
Go ahead.
I totally appreciate what you're saying about that.
Go ahead.
I'll tell you something else interesting here is even with like cars and stuff, like the like people talk about cars not in terms of what they cost, but in terms of what the monthly payment is.
100%.
And that's so weird.
I've never been to any other country where people even talk like that.
You'll just say, okay, like how much does the car cost?
If you can afford the car, you can afford it.
If you can't, it's not, can you afford the monthly payment?
It's can you afford the car?
So I don't know what the stat okay.
Oh, those are the stats.
Oh, there we go.
Okay.
Well, in Muslim countries, there's a cultural thing about debt in general.
Oh, it's not.
Yeah, and you're not allowed to charge interest, right?
Correct.
In Islamic banking, there's no.
How much car you buy, can't afford your weight.
So USA average credit card debt is 5,331.
Second is Canada.
Third is UK.
Then it's Japan, Germany, China, France, Italy, Brazil, India.
I just pulled up a stat here as well.
Card ownership.
Of the 2.8 billion credit cards worldwide, 1.1 billion is in the U.S.
Yeah.
And there's 330 people here.
Say those numbers there.
Okay.
There's 2.8 billion credit cards worldwide.
1.1 billion of those credit cards are in the U.S. 40%.
What is 40% of the credit?
That's like to match it with population.
If the world population is 8 billion, we would need to be at 3.2 billion.
So we have 10 times the amount of credit cards that we ought to have.
So that's an interesting point about how America is a credit economy.
That's four cards per person.
If you take 1.1 billion cards and you take 330, 340 million people in the U.S. and you take away the kids and you take away the highly elderly.
So those people in the middle probably have about four cards each.
Yeah.
It's weird.
Holy cow.
Yeah, it's really interesting.
There are a lot of things that are unique to the USA that I think a lot of Americans don't realize and perhaps think are just international things.
But when you come in as an outsider, you notice them and you're like, huh, that's weird.
Why is it like that?
Another big one here is pharmaceuticals.
Good grief.
Pharmaceuticals, like the amount of drugs consumed in this country is astonishing.
I mean, I think the USA has what 4% of the world's population, 4%, and consumes, I believe, 90% of the opioids and something like 70%, I believe.
You can check that, something like 70% of the overall total pharmaceuticals.
Why do you think that is?
Big pharma.
There it is.
But actually, why do you think that is?
Here's a big one.
Here's a big one.
There's only two countries, I believe, in the entire world where it's even legal to advertise prescription pharmaceuticals on TV and in magazines and so on, the USA and New Zealand.
So all these ads you see, like if you're all these ads, every time I'm looking at the screens, these pharmaceutical ads, you know, ask your doctor about, that's not even illegal.
That's not even legal in most of the world.
It's completely illegal across Europe.
It's illegal across Asia.
It's illegal in Africa.
And here it's something like 60 to 70% of the TV advertising revenue.
And so that's a massive factor.
So there's a huge incentive for drugs to be pushed, whether this is even on children, which is really concerning, right?
Whether that's all these amount of kids that are drugged up here is crazy.
It's crazy.
It's not normal at all.
And I think it's probably a relatively newish problem in the last few decades.
I don't think it used to be like that.
Well, I mean, if you pull up opioids death, you'll see it.
It is a decade.
I don't even think it's two decades.
I think it's a decade that just spiked up suddenly.
You know what happens?
It just validates that as controversial as Tom Cruise was about 10 years ago in the Matt Lauer interview.
He was right.
He's right.
He was talking about Ritland.
He was right.
He was right.
He's sitting there saying, well, you got to take this.
And you go, what are you talking about?
He says, Matt, Matt, you haven't done the research.
I have.
Matt, you don't know what you're talking about.
I do.
And everyone's like, what an arrogant.
So what if it's helping a road and all this stuff?
And it's like, no, you're not right.
By the way, here's what it shows.
It says, in the EU, the number of credit cards carried per person is 0.8.
And not even one per person.
U.S. is four.
Which is like a debit card for your bank, just a bank transfer card.
That's all you have.
Yeah, we just use debit cards.
Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But in that case, there's no debt, right?
I mean, at worst, someone might have an overdraft.
No, it's just secure transport of money.
Yeah.
I genuinely don't understand the point of credit cards.
I don't get it.
I've had people try to explain it to me, and I'm like, I don't get why I'd want that.
Well, why?
Well, I will spend your own money if you can spend somebody else's spending.
But I will tell them.
But I will tell you, amongst people who have money, you know, you'll see that guys who have real, real money, they will not use a debit card.
And not because they're not using the debit card because they don't have the cash.
They use the kind of a credit card that you pay at the end of the month, not the kind of a credit card that you're like, hey, you know, I'm going to, you know, you pay off.
You know, people have credit cards that they pay at the end of the month.
Every month we have, you know, one of our credit cards, we pay, I don't know what the number is every month, four, $500,000 per month that we pay off because it's like a business credit card, but we have to pay it every month.
It's not rolling, right?
And the reason for that is protection because you don't want your debit card number out there.
That's what you don't want because that can be hacked into your cash where the money's at.
So that's the only argument against debit is to use credit that you pay at the end of the month.
What you're saying is, which makes a lot of sense, is the credit card to just use and pile up the debt.
I'll pay it off.
And that's kind of the culture.
I mean, I got caught up in that in my early 20s.
I was in at $49,000 and it was a mess.
It took me a minute to pay that thing off.
I had a choice between BKN paying it off and eventually paid it off, but it was not an easy transition to go through it.
Can I add to this?
Yeah.
You touched on it.
I don't understand the purpose of credit score.
I talk about this all the time where I don't really, I mean, I have a good credit score, not going to lie.
It's 800, whatever.
But it's like I'm more concerned with my net worth than my credit score.
That's what people like.
You talked about the problem that we're having in America is the credit score and credit cards has been gamified.
I'm getting points.
I'm getting miles.
I get to travel.
I get to travel for free.
Who was the guy, Catch Me If You Can?
The movie that Leonardo DiCaprio played?
I'm escaping his name, but the great guy.
He's basically saying you need Abingale.
Frank Abignale, exactly.
He was saying you have to have a credit card.
That's the only thing to prevent fraud.
If someone takes your debit card and takes, you know, 10 grand off of it, that's going to be a lot more difficult getting it back because that's your money versus the credit card.
You call up the credit card, you call it in.
So there is this thing with that.
Back to the credit card situation.
I don't know if you're aware of this, Tom.
So I talk about the four C's of debt.
Everyone has to deal with this.
We've got credit cards.
You've got car loans.
You've got college, right?
Student debt.
And the big one is cribs, aka mortgages.
Obviously, if you buy your house right, you know what you're doing.
But a lot of people feel like they have to buy.
They buy more house than they can afford.
And they get into this mortgage debt situation.
We've all seen the cribs on MTV.
Payment-based lifestyle.
Exactly.
Can I go?
How much are you going to do?
But here's the interesting thing about credit cards.
Credit cards during the pandemic was the only of those four that went down.
$2.1 billion of credit card debt were erased.
Exactly.
So people were buying.
So people were buying cribs.
People were buying more cars.
We all saw that used car prices have skyrocketed.
When has that ever happened?
Right.
And then people still keep going to college.
But credit card debt went down by 13%.
Now, we had this big spike of up 13% because it went down because everyone's sitting at home.
No one's traveling other than Zubi traveling around the world.
And everyone's just sitting at home.
They're getting stimulus checks.
They're getting unemployment checks.
They're like, all right, fuck it.
I'll pay down this credit card debt.
So that's the reason that it's escalated.
So if you look at the credit card debt, I think student loan debt is at 1.5 trillion.
Car loans are at like 1.3 trillion.
And credit cards has never even reached a trillion.
I think it's like hovering between 800 and 900 billion.
It goes up depending on the money.
That's been the peak.
It's been there a couple of times.
Exactly.
But it hasn't hit a trillion.
So it's not that big.
Like the student debt issue is way worse than the credit card issue.
How much is student loan debt?
Total, about 1.5 trillion.
That's insane.
Okay.
And then cars, 1.3 trillion.
Credit card hovering between $750, $850, $900.
As students are going back, Zubi, it's kind of interesting.
United States, sometime next year, it will be official.
Unless this economy causes people to put their life on credit cards, what's about to happen is student loan debt is going to be two times credit card debt sometime next year.
It's already close.
If that number on the screen there is right, 1.75.
Yep.
I think it's even up from the last time I checked the stat with 1.5.
Now it's at 1.7 trillion.
What?
This has gone up in the last 20 years.
By the way, remember how earlier I said, I wonder how much room is left in credit?
So the 16.2 trillion is all mortgages, auto loans, credit card, all that, right?
Okay.
The increase in borrowing, which equals $302 billion over the last three months, reflected in higher prices for homes, cars, and aggregate.
Consumers still have plenty of room to spend with another 3.33 trillion in available credit.
That's a lot of money.
Okay, so 3.33 trillion in available credit.
Since the pandemic started, about 42 million new credit card accounts have been opened, and consumers now hold more than $750 million auto loan, credit card, mortgage, and home equity line of credit.
Overall, consumer ages 30 to 59 have record levels of debt.
There you go.
It goes back to the point, Pat.
You got to connect those two dots, Pat.
I'm sorry, Zoom.
You have to connect the two dots.
What hasn't gone up is wages.
And so the delinquency rate, regardless of how high that credit ceiling is, as soon as this delinquency rate starts moving, that's when we're in trouble and that ceiling is going to come down.
I'm sorry.
Go ahead.
Yeah, no, sorry.
Did you say there were 750 million car loans?
750 million car mortgage credit cards.
So it's like all combined.
So if you run a credit report and say you got a $28,000 car loan, you got a $476,000 mortgage loan.
You got a $9,000 credit card debt.
All of them, they're counting as accounts.
$750 million accounts like that.
I think total debt per person, if you divvy it all up just using those math, I think the average American, mortgages included, owes about 50 grand or 50 grand in debt.
So that's what it is.
Do most people here have negative self-net worth?
Oh, yeah.
Oh, my gosh.
So the running joke, you'd say this in comedy is like, all right, I just graduated college and I just ran into a homeless guy on the street.
He's asking me for money.
It's like, nah, buddy, I owe $100,000 in debt.
You're zero.
Okay.
So who's worse off?
It's so confusing.
Like this country really confuses me in so many ways how it's like the richest country in the world in certain aspects, but then the majority of adults have a negative net worth.
I mean, that doesn't sound like those sound like contradictory.
Well, here's the deal.
You could be smart and misinformed and stupid at the same time.
You know, you could be like making a ton of money, but also broke as shit.
Yeah, it's true.
That's America for you, baby.
Welcome to America, Zubi.
Yeah.
It's just really weird because you hear these stats about, I don't know what it is, like 50% of people couldn't afford a $4,000 emergency or something.
I don't want to misquote the stat, but something like that.
And then, I mean, when I'm out and about and you're just seeing all these cards on the roads and you're seeing the houses and stuff, I'm like, how does that even make sense?
Like, that doesn't.
Well, bro, here's what I say all the time.
There's a difference between poor and broke.
Yeah.
So you said you grew up in Nigeria and then you... Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia, but your parents are from Nigeria.
Okay.
So, but there's certain places in maybe that part of the world, third world countries that are, you're poor, right?
You don't make any money.
You're relying on whatever it is a day, a dollar a day.
We've seen these commercials, UNICEF, whatever.
America, most Americans aren't poor.
They're just broke.
They make 50 grand a year and they spend 55 grand a year.
And they just make poor financial decisions.
And that's why the average credit card debt, I think, is about $6,000.
The average student loan debt, I think, is closer to like $35,000.
So it's not a shocker that student loan debt is way higher than total credit card debt because you could rack up 50 grand student debt, no problem.
But in, because there's not going to be no limit.
You can go get your master's, take out another 100 grand of debt, student loan debt.
I'm sorry, credit card debt, they'll cap you at 5, 10 grand, whatever it is.
The university thing is not, just strikes me as completely unsustainable.
I think in our lifetime, we're going to see such a huge change and revolution in higher education.
I think we're still running off the fumes of previous generations where people thought and a lot of people still think, oh, you have to go to college.
You have to get this degree to do this.
You have to get that.
I think like people my age and younger who are starting companies and running companies and so on, I think understand, okay, this is no longer the case.
I think many people in the older generation, because they're still thinking, okay, when I was a teenager or I was in my early 20s, going to college was the thing.
It made sense.
You had to do it for this.
And the world has changed so much.
And I think that it's just the credential now, isn't it?
So I think that just like you've had a revolution in so many, if you, so many, everything else has been disrupted, but education hasn't.
Everything else has been, I'm a musician, right?
The music industry, that was one of the first, right?
Completely disrupted.
Photography disrupted.
Movies, entertainment, whole entertainment industry completely disrupted.
So many things are chopping and changing, but with education, both school and especially university level, it's just stagnant.
It's gotten way more expensive.
Why do you think?
And the value of it has gone down.
Why do you think?
Why do you think it's gotten more expensive?
Because there's an answer.
I'm just curious.
Why do you think it's gotten more expensive?
When did it change?
I don't know for the USA.
In the UK, in the UK, it's changed significantly because in the UK, it used to be taxpayer funded.
So all the MPs and government officials in the UK, they went to university for free, right?
No tuition fees, zero, right?
Nothing.
It costs nothing.
When I was there, I think per year, the tuition fees were £3,000.
Now I think it's about £10,000.
So I left university 2007.
So it's gone from zero to, say, 9,000 over the course of three years to 30,000.
And that's 2007 to now.
Zubi, who's the Sally Mae of UK?
I don't think there is one.
So who finances school loan in UK?
So if I'm going to, if I'm going to a school, do I go to the government, get a loan and a federal loan to go to school?
I believe it's a federal loan.
I believe it's a federal loan.
So here's the challenge on what happened.
From 1980 to today, I'll give you exact stats in America.
From 1980 to today, inflation is up 217%.
Just basic inflation.
So whatever was worth, you know, if you were buying something for 10 bucks, you're paying, you know, whatever, $20 a month for it, right?
200 what?
217% inflation from 1980 till today.
Do you know what the college tuition has gone up from 1980 till today?
Probably.
1999%.
I'm sorry, 1,199%, which is exactly like 1,200%.
So inflation, six times.
Inflation is up 217.
College tuition is up 1,200%.
So now why?
Here's why.
You know how if you start a new business, okay, and you got this idea.
If you go to B of A or Wells Fargo, what are the chances of B of A and Wells Fargo saying, no, I'm not going to finance it?
Pretty high.
Okay.
Banks like those types of banks are not going to finance your business idea if you have zero credibility.
I had like a half a million dollar loan.
Yeah, okay, whatever.
This is not the 60s.
Go somewhere else, right?
So you have to go get it from Angel or you have to get it from other people, right?
You're not going to get it from a bigger bank.
Okay.
If college education is so worth it, why don't banks finance it?
Let me say it one more time.
College education is so worth it because it's not worth it.
So even banks don't believe you're going to pay that back.
So banks are like saying, we're not going to take that risk.
But the day the government said we will finance college tuition for every dollar that bank, that the government finances, colleges can increase it 60 cents.
So I don't know if that makes sense or not.
So every year, so you know, like you and I, there's a certain regulation you have when you're competing.
It's a monopoly.
You can't compete all this other stuff.
So everybody's targeting companies.
Well, they're a monopoly.
They're a this, they're that.
Okay.
The ultimate monopoly and everyone's bad, you know, corporations don't pay taxes.
First of all, let me give you one crazy stat, crazy stat on this.
There's 13 universities in America that have $10 billion or more in their bank account, cash.
They call it endowments.
Harvard, number one, right?
Harvard's number one at $53 billion, but you got $10 to $53 billion in savings.
Now, let's see who the real greedy people are.
Watch the statistic.
Name me the fast food place we've gone to, the biggest fast food place in the world.
What's the name of it?
McDonald's?
How much do you think they got in cash?
So remember, the 13th university has 10 billion in endowment.
It's just a college.
How much do you think McDonald's has in cash?
Tens of billions?
2.3 billion.
That's it.
Oh, wow.
That's it.
They got 50,000 freaking locations worldwide employing hundreds of thousands of people worldwide.
They're only sitting on $2.3 billion.
They're the greedy people.
How much do you think Starbucks has in cash?
400,000 employees.
One.
How much do you think Starbucks?
Do you see where you're going now?
Now you're thinking about it, right?
Because Starbucks only has $3 billion in cash.
Check this out.
Facebook, trillion-dollar company, only has $54 billion in cash, the same as Harvard.
How the hell does Facebook have the same amount of cash as Harvard?
Tesla, massive company, only $18 billion.
Disney, massive company, only $16 billion in cash.
How?
And then they have the audacity to say corporations don't pay taxes, but no one has the audacity to call out colleges while they pay this much taxes.
March Madness, zero on taxes.
Football, zero on taxes.
They get away with all of that and they get to charge parents more money every year and pressure parents to finance their house and take money out?
You're absolutely right.
I think the phase we are today, people are starting to realize and question everything.
People like yourself, people like us, were like, dude, I don't know what the hell is going on, but I'm questioning and I want to learn more.
How the hell does Starbucks only have $3 billion?
How the hell does McDonald's have 2.3 billion in the bank?
We got 13 universities that have 10 billion or more in the bank.
See, this is the kind of stuff where when you question it and you kind of open up the, you're like, holy shit, they got no competition and the government's got their backs.
And if education is so worth it, why aren't banks financing it?
Maybe it's no longer worth it.
And the worst thing that happened to colleges and universities, you know what's the worst thing that happened to college?
Government getting involved?
You know what's the worst thing?
Not the best thing.
That's the best thing that happened to them.
You know what's the worst thing that happened to colleges and universities?
The internet.
COVID.
Oh, okay.
Best thing happened to us?
Worst thing that happened to colleges and universities.
You know why?
Because COVID forced people, universities to get cornered.
COVID happens, then Harvard students and parents are like, look, now that everybody's doing from Zoom and they're no longer on Canvas.
You're going to lower tuition.
There's going to be a lower tuition.
And Harvard says, no, the stamp of approval of Harvard is you still have to pay full tuition.
And then they said, well, I thought the experience of college was you got an insurance policy because if something doesn't work out, you can always say, I got a degree from this school.
I thought it was about the education.
I thought it was about the pride.
And I thought it was about the network and the experience of being there.
Oh, so now I can get a degree online.
I don't need to pay this anymore.
So I can be a nomad person traveling the world and still get my four-year degree.
Hey, mom, hey, dad.
Why don't you finance me, track my grades, just allow me to travel the world while I'm getting my four-year degree?
I would much rather do it that way.
The worst thing that happened to colleges was COVID, and they're going to pay a price for it long term.
Yeah, so COVID plus the internet.
COVID plus the internet.
Yeah, absolutely.
COVID plus the internet.
Can I give you a little pushback, maybe?
All right.
Go for it.
All right.
Because it's a little bit more of an by the way, we're on the same page here.
The word entrepreneurship, we didn't hear growing up, like our age, if you're in your late 30s, early 40s.
When did you hear about entrepreneurship?
Tom, you just turned 60.
Happy birthday, by the way.
When did you hear about the term entrepreneurship?
It was probably five years out of college.
Okay.
I knew what it was, and I knew the concept.
I knew there, but the economy of all the startups and everything like that, you know, I was in LA, so there was proximity to it, but it wasn't as it wasn't front of mind and it wasn't like seen as a valid option.
Now, the whole notion of side hustle is micro entrepreneurship, and it's very, what are you doing for a side hustle?
You know, it's very exactly.
Well, anyway, where I was going with this argument is that because it's conflicting because you're going to want to send your girls to a good college, I assume.
Oh, they're not going to study art history.
You're not going to study anything soft.
But you're sending them to college.
I think it's a good idea for doctors and nuclear physicists to get education.
Yeah, I take STEM and law out.
Yes.
Totally agree.
Yeah, I agree.
The problem is, and I went to college, but I always tell people I don't even know why the hell I went to college.
I just went partying and hanging out with chicks the whole time.
And maybe I went to class.
But if you look at the stats, and this comes down to individual responsibility, if you look at the stats, the average college graduate will earn double what a high school graduate will earn in their lifetime.
So let's back out the numbers.
If you go to college, average college student will make $2 million over their lifetime.
Okay, the average high school student, high school graduate, will make $1 million.
Okay, so if you're going to take out $50,000 in debt, let's just say that's a pretty fair trade-off to take out $50,000 to make an extra million dollars.
College isn't the necessary factor, though.
I was about to say that, but go ahead, make your point.
And then Zubi will have some questions.
I'm with you on this.
However, the challenge is where are you going to college?
Like you said, you're not going to do an art history major.
That's really what it comes down to: is like your four-year degree, you can take it a state college, state school, pay the normal, you know, state tuition.
And if you can get into Harvard or Yale or Stanford, you're going.
I don't care what you say.
You go to Harvard.
You take the opportunity.
You'll deal with the ramifications of the debt at a later date.
But it's when you go to like Oberlin College in wherever, some liberal arts, and you pay out of state tuition where you could have just gone to, you know, FIU here in South Florida or FAU, whatever.
But no, I'm going to go to whatever random private school in whatever city because you want the college experience.
That's where you end up spending instead of 50 grand, 250 grand.
And then depending on your major, you know, because certain majors have different ROIs.
That's the difference.
Yeah, let's be real.
Allotted degrees are trash.
I agree.
Most.
There's a small handful of the traditional ones, which we know you've said.
STEM, law, you know, you want to be an engineer, a doctor, a lawyer.
There's certain ones, very obvious.
Anything that ends in studies, nonsense.
Right.
Anything with studies in the title, nonsense.
I love that.
And then there's other stuff that's more kind of in the middle, you know, geography, history, English, might be useful for some very specific niches, but you probably going into a huge amount of debt to get that degree in this day and age.
But the problem is you have to make this life-altering decision when you're 17, 18 years old.
How the hell do you know what you're going to do the rest of your life?
I put this on.
So you're like, all right, do I go to college?
Do I not go to college?
I put it on parents.
I mean, this is an interesting one because my perspective has changed on this a lot, not because of, because the world has changed and the reality has changed and the opportunity cost and real cost has completely changed.
So, for example, when my oldest brother, when my oldest brother went to university in the UK, didn't have to pay anything out of pocket, right?
Taxpayer funded, tuition fees covered, right?
So this is in the 90s.
It's like, well, if you're in the UK, going to university was like a no-brainer.
It barely costs you anything.
Like it's just upside, right?
Like why would you not go, assuming you're mentally capable of going?
Why wouldn't you go?
Yeah, you may as well go.
And the value of a degree was still high because there wasn't in the internet and all these different options and opportunities.
It's like, yeah, you know, you get a degree, get a job, you're good to go.
And then I, you know, years later, you know, a decade later, I go to university and it's like, okay, the cost has gone up now.
You're starting to, we're starting to move into this world.
I was in university 2004 to 2007.
We're starting to move into this internet era, but it's not like it is now kind of in the middle.
Okay, the costs are, there's some costs, but it's still very affordable, 3,000 pounds per year, very affordable.
And then now it's like, okay, another 10 years passes by.
The cost has tripled.
The value has dropped.
You've introduced even all these new majors and courses, which are complete nonsense.
And it's like the equation changes.
So by the time I have kids and they're 17, 18, assuming it keeps going on this trajectory, I have no interest in them going to university, right?
Unless it's like for something very, very specific because the world has just changed so much, right?
So this is the thing I think so many parents, and I understand it.
I'm not trying to put them down or anyway, but I think they're still viewing it as in, okay, in the 80s or in the 90s, this is how it was.
And they're still viewing it the same way.
They're not even realizing that, oh, okay, like they're not getting the same, you're not getting the same value.
It's wild that you're getting all these people coming out of university.
And then you go and work in Starbucks or you go and work in a shoe shop or do something that you could have just done without a degree.
And you have to consider the opportunity cost.
What else could you have done in that three or four year period or five year period, right?
It's not just that you're going into debt.
It's like, okay, you're losing out on earnings.
You're losing out on experience.
There's some degrees that make you dumber, right?
If you go and you study women's studies with a minor in queer theory, like you're coming out dumber than you went in.
Or maybe just more awoke.
Dumber.
No, really.
Like you're coming out worse.
You're actually coming out worse.
You're coming out with less common sense, less grasp on reality, more of an less of an ability to communicate with normal people.
You've just been.
Depending how far you go down that rabbit hole that way.
Well, if you major in that for four years, you're going to come out with some loopy ideas.
And it's a Ponzi scheme because the only way you can even make money from those degrees is going back into academia and brainwashing another generation.
But I got to tell you this.
Okay, so just think about if you had all the resources in the world, okay?
And say you have 10 billion in the bank and you're at a point, you've traveled the world, you have kids, you're 59 years old, Zuby, King Zuby.
You're 59 years old.
You got 10 billion in a bank.
Beautiful wife.
Your kids are doing great.
They love you.
Life is good.
Married, happy, everything.
You're politically making an impact.
You've done great for yourself.
And then you're seeing a big leak in education.
And if you chose to start a university, how would you start that university?
And what would you teach?
What would be your format?
Because there is a leak in it.
And there is experience in, there's a big difference between us doing the podcast this way versus us doing a podcast on a Zoom.
You're sitting right here in Flesh.
I'm sitting right here on Flesh.
We're having this conversation.
It's a little bit more intimate versus, hey, Zubi, so how are things going on?
So there is that intimate experience.
So if you have 10 billion and all of a sudden you get the itch and you say, you know what?
I just think, you know, we do need a university.
I do think we need to do something.
There's a way of doing it better.
How would you do it better?
I have some ideas.
I'm curious how you guys would do it better.
That's a great question.
I mean, the first thing I would do is have this conversation with smart people in different fields, successful people in the world of science and law.
Talk to doctors, talk to people like yourself, entrepreneurs, and see, okay, what we've been running with this system for centuries, right?
The world has changed massively in each person's field and sector.
Let's have this conversation and see, okay, like what would what would what would you want to teach?
What do you think would be valuable?
Ask that of different people.
And then over time, I wouldn't put it all on myself and think, you know, I have the knowledge of all these, you know, I just want to.
But even for you, just for you.
Like ideally for you.
Like, okay, so for example, you know, you know, like you, you, you start a restaurant, okay?
And if we're starting a restaurant together, the four of us, first thing, let's just say, okay, what do we want to do?
Do we want to make it a niche?
What do you mean?
Is it sushi?
If it's sushi, we're doing sushi.
If it's, you know, American, we're doing burgers.
Okay, we're doing that.
If we're doing Italian, we're doing Italian.
Are we doing a mixture?
Are we doing like a fusion?
Is that what we're going to be doing?
Okay, let's just say we're doing a fusion.
What's the fusion between?
Let's say we're doing Peruvian and Chinese food combined, like Chino Chiclano by Jose Andres.
Okay, we're doing a fusion of Mexican food and, you know, whatever food.
Perfect.
That's where you took me in Vegas.
That's where you're coming up with.
Chiclano is in DC.
Vegas is Poblano.
Poblano is Mexican and Chinese fusion.
So then we make a menu.
And we say, what do you like on the menu?
You say, I like these seven things to eat.
What do you like?
I like these nine things.
Tom, what do you?
I like these six things.
Tyler, what do you think?
I like these eight things.
We add it.
Then we look at the list and we say, guys, which one of these can we eliminate?
And one by one by one, we eliminate.
And we keep the top 40% of the items on the menu that we all love.
Okay.
I think the first step is take all the topics that are teaching and look at it and say, which one of these are you going to use in your life?
And I want to say, da, Okay, let's take the top 20% of things that we are going to use.
Okay.
And then let's add new things that nobody else is teaching to it, business, entrepreneurship, negotiation, sales, money.
Let's add this to it, right?
Health and fitness.
Let's add this to it.
Diet, like that kind of stuff.
Let's add this to it and let's go with it.
And by the way, if you want to study philosophy, go to university of whatever.
If you want to study this, go over there.
Our school is to teach you stuff that you're going to apply in your life.
And then here's what makes us unique, Adam.
What's that?
Two things.
Number one, 50% of our professors are former operators.
What do you mean?
It's a form of a contribution to society.
Hey, Adam, you're 63.
You've made a lot of money.
You don't need to make another 50 million bucks.
Are you willing to contribute six hours of your week to society?
Yeah, what do I need to do?
A class a day for one hour.
I can do a class every other day.
No problem.
Let's start off with that.
Adam is now a professor teaching basics of money because he became financially free, but he's not talking as a guy that desperately needs the salary.
He's talking from a guy that's worth $10 million.
Here's how I did it.
These are the mistakes that I made, right?
Okay, Zuby, your topic is going to be this.
How do you want to, can you, are you willing to contribute to such set guys that can only do two hours a week?
No problem.
It's fine.
Here's what we're going to do.
Then my format will be the following format.
In topics that there needs to be a lot of debate, the class would have two professors, not one professor.
If we do religious studies, I'm going to have a Christian and I'm going to have a whatever, pick another denomination, or not denomination, religion, Muslim, put Catholicism, Mormonism, Judaism, pick them, okay?
And that's what it is.
So you debate and I debate.
And I'm the student.
I'm enamored the entire time because I'm like, what a freaking format.
You're sitting there teaching history.
Have a couple people debate.
Every class would have two professors, not one.
And the format would be debate.
Because I think what we're saying here with universities, I think if a university like that existed, I would love for my kids to go there.
Like the idea has got to be, dude, I am so happy my kids are in your hands.
Thank you.
I'm so happy my kids are in your hands.
I was at a wedding last November.
And at the wedding, the father, the guy that was getting married, shows up to me and he gives me a hug and he starts crying.
He says, listen, man, I'm so glad you got a hold of my son at 18 years old.
Because the teaching, the environment changed.
So I have kids.
I know eventually these kids got to go learn from somebody else.
For me to be able to say, my son is spending a quarter with Tom, I'm like, it's coming from a place of, dude, that kid is going to come better.
So the idea of education for parents needs to be, I can't wait to meet the final product of my daughter or my son.
But that's not the feeling today.
However, if you are woke left, if you are liberal and you are sending your kids to UC Berkeley, guess what?
You are going to get exactly what you were hoping to get when the kids come out of college.
If that makes any sense.
And that should be their choice.
Put it up to the free market, have these different, and we'll see who turns out better.
I love the debate philosophy.
Another problem is that we touched on this.
A lot of these teachers don't understand money.
Don't understand, unless they're an economics professor, don't understand how money works and the economy works.
They don't understand less about money than everybody else has.
Sometimes it's like here you have these teachers and respected teachers.
I mean, I'm not going to shit on teachers, but overall, I think that's a necessary component of society.
But you go to school to make money or to learn how to make money, and then you're learning from people that don't know how to make money.
So it's sort of a backwards philosophy.
And I think we'd be doing a disservice if we don't talk about the advantages of a lot of people going to technical schools.
In America, you're frowned upon if you become a plumber, right?
Or if you become an HVAC technician, or if you become any sort of electrician working with your hands, it's like these guys make six figures.
Do you know what's going on here?
And this is the case with many things in our society is there's this concept of perceived legitimacy.
And I think this is what these universities are still running on.
Some of them rightfully so, right?
But many times it's all smoke and mirrors and fumes.
It's branding, right?
So why should, you know, why does somebody say, if someone says, oh, you know, I work in this legal office and I make 80 grand, people look at that one way and a plumber who's making 120 grand, you look at a different way or an electrician or a mechanic or something, right?
It's this concept of like perceived legitimacy or clout or sort of prestige.
But a lot of it is just branding and marketing that's kind of been put in people's heads for decades that causes them to kind of turn their nose up at certain things or frown on certain things and look at other things isn't like, oh, wow, this is amazing.
And I think that as you, as we've all alluded to, people are waking up to that.
And I think this is going to be a generational shift.
I think far more younger people, people say under 40, certainly under 30, are looking at the numbers and are looking at, by now, we've had a decade of people coming out of college in multiple countries who can't get a decent job.
Right.
And people are looking at that and waking up to it and experiencing it themselves and are like, hmm, okay, I did this thing.
Even if someone's there with 100 grand debt and you're 27 years old and you're now thinking, honestly, if I'm honest with myself, that wasn't worth it.
It wasn't worth me going into all that debt to get my degree in history or fine art.
They'll make a different choice when they have children, right?
They're going to look at that situation and be like, okay, my parents did this because they thought it was the best for me.
Maybe they encouraged and pushed me to go to college because that's what they did and it worked out well for them.
But look, the world has changed.
The game has changed.
There's new technology.
There's new options.
We don't need to kind of keep going down the same thing.
Cause ultimately, when you think about what is the, what's really the purpose of education?
And I think people get this twisted, right?
People confuse.
I've said before that education is cheap or free, but college is expensive.
People conflate college and education.
They're not the same thing.
You can be extremely, you can be highly, highly educated, very, very knowledgeable and not have a university degree.
You can have a university degree and be very ignorant and naive and not very intelligent.
Yeah, I don't know how many people go to college because they want to get smarter.
No, it's a return on your investment to have a career and jobs where you can make money.
That's it.
Yeah, but it's not even, it's not even really that practically, right?
For so many companies, again, the legacy companies, the college degree is just a filter.
It's a filter.
And I think.
A lot of those big companies, such as the big tech companies, are no longer demanding that you have a college degree.
This is what I'm talking about.
So they are waking up and going, okay, actually, what do we, we want to know that you can do the job and do the job well.
Maybe 20 years ago, a degree was a very good sign of that.
Now, for whatever reason, it's not.
We want to know, have you got the skills?
And so I think that I think there's a disruption that's happening.
I think we're in the early phases of it.
We've seen it in all of these other sectors just over the last few decades.
And I think that the same is going to happen with education.
And I think once that perceived legitimacy switches from just being, oh, you know, you would have to go to this college or that college.
And it just becomes, oh, okay, there's these other options and there's these other ways.
And we respect that.
And that's valid and that's legitimate and we don't frown upon that.
Then I think the whole game is going to be happening.
And it'll also cause the colleges to have to respond and react to that.
Because if they want to keep attracting and getting students, they're going to need to step up their game.
They're going to realize, okay, we can't keep charging people 20 grand a year to learn some nonsense that they're not going to get any real value from because they're starting to get hip to the game.
Yeah, it's happening.
It's below the surface.
Pat and I are both very passionate about education.
I mean, at the core, my alter ego, the BizDoc, is a teacher.
That's me.
And I look around it.
I went to State Stool, Cal State Northridge, because that's what I could afford.
No scholarships, no athletic ability.
That's what I could afford.
And I did pretty well because I was a smart kid.
I learned some things.
I studied business administration marketing.
So the finance was valuable.
Certain things were valuable.
They made me take some general ed courses, geology and stuff, because I need science credit.
I don't think that was valuable.
I think it was profitable for the school.
I don't know that that was.
Prerequisites.
You're required to take these classes before you can start doing your major.
Bullshit.
What Pat and I did, we went to a conference and GSV puts on an education conference.
And we went and saw there are lights shining out there.
And I don't want to hold any up, but we.
GSP, you got to clarify.
GSP is not George St. Pierre.
This is a GSV.
GSV.
Yes.
This is the one where Betsy DeVos was getting protesting outside.
Correct.
It was ASU GSV summit on education, but really it was a showcase of some really clever companies.
One was out there to you.
And because we were both very impressed with this guy, Chip Pasek, who came out there and said, hey, I'm going to make technical education available for the masses without the debt overhang.
So you can go learn how to code and to be a computer science engineer and then go get yourself a job in an industry that had a shortage.
And so they'd love you to get skills in two and a half years and be available.
Rather than waiting for you to go through MIT or Caltech for four years.
And so there, I think, are lights shining there.
And also, I think people need to pay attention to two things.
Online education in the United States, a lot of colleges and universities are just waking up to it.
If you look at ads on TV, like ESPN and stuff, you'll see Southern New Hampshire University, Grand Canyon University.
You know the ones I'm talking about.
You don't see Cornell advertising.
Phoenix University.
Well, University of Phoenix had another problem, and it's a shadow of what it was.
And I don't think it's really doing it right.
But the ones I'm just talking about, they are effectively educating people distant from their homes while Cornell is like, we would never do that.
Why?
Because it's not the economic model that Cornell wants to keep, wants to keep.
But are those online universities actually worth it?
Because I don't know how many people go to those universities because they want a degree in something or a major education.
It's just like, I got to get a fucking degree.
Let me just do it online.
All right, cool.
Bang it up.
Boom.
Southern New Hampshire.
Well, that's part of the thing that is slowly moving is you're slowly seeing things move or corporate America is not using it.
You were so correct.
He called it the filtering mechanism.
That's exactly what it is.
It's a filtering mechanism.
Okay, you have a degree.
And from where did you get the degree?
Filtering mechanism.
From Southern New Hampshire.
And what?
From the university.
No, I'm going to another level, right?
I don't care where someone got an education as long as they can show me what they did.
You know, we hired a business analyst.
I didn't care where he got his education as long as he could show me what he did.
He was a smart guy.
We trained him and he brought raw materials and worked out great for us.
That is, and by the way, why do we do that at our company?
Because where we came from, we weren't Ivy League bigots.
We didn't look at it that way.
And Pat say, wow, is it from this school to that school?
We looked at him and say, is he smart, clever, smart, clever, two different things, right?
Is he dedicated?
Is he focused?
Is he teachable?
Is he personable?
We looked at all these things and said, okay, he's bringing raw materials and he already knows how to do this and this.
We're going to show him the rest.
And guess what?
The guy had a really good run with us.
Another thing that's so major is, because when I think of education in general, both school and university level, because a lot of this stuff can filter down to schools as well is I think, okay, what are the things that no matter, if you're an adult, you're going to have to deal with these things, right?
No matter what you choose to do, how you live your life, there's certain things that we all have to deal with.
That's why I brought up health, health, and nutrition, right?
We all have a body.
We all eat food multiple times per day and we've got one body that we need to take care of, right?
So to me, it's ludicrous that someone can go through a multi-decade education process and you don't learn at least the basics of taking care of your body.
That's insane, right?
Money.
We all deal with money.
Whatever job you do, however you live your life, whether you stay single, you get married, you have children, you're going to have to deal with money.
You're going to have to deal with money and with finances.
Gaping hole.
Like that's not even a subject.
How's that not a school subject, right?
This is where I start thinking everything is a psyop because I'm like that game.
It's like a societal benefit.
That's where I think it can't be accidental, right?
They want people to be stupid about these things.
So you're going to have to deal with those things.
Of course, communication.
Communication, right?
And not what to think, but how to think, right?
Like being able, not everyone has the skills to have this type of conversation.
They haven't learned how to communicate, how to listen, not just how to talk and how to read and how to write and how to understand, but how to just sit down and listen to another person and, you know, control your emotions and, you know, know when to, all of these things are really important skills.
And as we all know, as entrepreneurs and people who do what we do, so much of it isn't just the hard math and hard science and hard, it's like, cool, like those are important in certain ways, but it's, can you relate to people?
Can you communicate?
Can you get an idea across?
Can you influence people?
Can you persuade people?
All of that stuff.
I think we have that.
I think we have that at universities.
I just don't know if, you know, some do it better than others.
I think that is taking place.
And a part of that, like, look, let's not get it twisted.
Even if I go to the best school based on everything that I just talked about or you just talked about that they're going to offer and you come out, you still could fail in life and you still could still be a schmuck because you're not going to be able to apply this stuff.
It still goes back to the individual when they come out, right?
Like when you say the average person that finishes college makes $2 million more than the other person that doesn't.
Okay, is that the college or is that because the kid's got the discipline to finish things he starts?
We don't know.
So what are we going to give the credibility to?
We don't know the data there, right?
The whole debate with are men better drivers than women.
You know, a guy was showing me one of the Tate's videos about a guy's question and saying, hey, are women better drivers than men?
And I'm sitting there saying, this guy's actually making the argument and he's serious about it.
He says, well, yeah, women are better drivers than men.
According to data, data sometimes lies.
What do you mean by that?
First of all, okay, so let's talk about a couple different things when it comes down to why insurance is cheaper for women than it is for men.
Number one, who in their lifetime drives more miles, men or women?
Who drives more miles?
Is it even a question?
Well, if you're going to include truckers, not this man, but I'm saying, like, most men.
Nobody's Ubered more than me around here.
Most men drive more miles than women do.
Okay, second statistics.
If we were to take the average speed men go versus the average speed women go, how many more miles per hour do you think men go than women?
Probably 10.
I was going to say 10 miles, right?
Okay.
If you're going 10 miles faster than women do, the chance of you getting to an accident is probably if it's 50 miles, 10, 20% higher of you killing yourself in car accidents.
Okay, I totally get that.
But does it mean women are better drivers than men?
No.
But sometimes data is so misleading, like $2 million more.
Who calculated it?
How did they calculate it?
What are the factors?
What are the things that we're not given?
Are we giving way too much credit to the actual college education and not enough to the individual?
Are we giving credit to the upbringing of the parent?
There's so many different factors, but it's easy to always just give the credit to who?
It's because the colleges.
There's way more factors to it than just colleges.
Again, I want to change topics.
You have some stuff to say about Saudi Arabia.
Let me just first give credit to a couple super chatters.
We have The Mind of Veena gave 50 bucks.
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Whether good or bad, this is true for military complex debt, obesity, drugs, excess good, bad, skyscrapers, everything is bigger than U.S. identity.
This is abundance, but also egregious excess brand.
Look at Texas.
Everything's bigger to rise.
Hello, come on now.
Smedley Butler III says, Zubi, the purpose of credit card debts were never meant to be for the consumer.
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Thank you, Smedley.
And outside of that, I want to talk to you about Saudi Arabia and golf.
Sure.
Okay.
Okay.
So we went viral last time we talked about Saudi Arabia.
That one came out.
There is this phenomenon with Tiger Woods turned down Live Golf $700 million to an $800 million offer.
This is the biggest offer they made to anybody.
This was in an attempt to lure the 15-time major winner away from the PGA tour.
According to Live Golf CEO, Greg Norman, the number has been out there.
Yes, Norman said.
Tiger is a needle mover.
So of course, you got to look at the best of the best.
They originally approached Tiger before I became CEO.
So yes, that number is somewhere in that neighborhood.
The Saudi Arabia-backed golf league has grown notorious for offering audacious sums of money to pry golfers from PGA Tour, with Woods offer being the most lucrative total known to date.
So what do you think about, you know, why this has become so controversial?
You know, oh my God, I cannot believe you're going to go and take money from, you know, Saudi Arabia.
Why would you do that?
Do you realize what they do over there?
What are your thoughts on this?
This is my very first time hearing anything about this.
And I'm not even familiar with Live Golf.
What exactly is Live Golf?
Oh, this is totally new.
Brilliant.
I'm totally new.
So do you want to kind of tell them what's going on with Live Golf?
Yeah, not that I'm a huge golf guy, but basically they started a competitive league to or championship series to basically the PGA.
Okay.
So and now they're basically, let's see who can be bought.
Well, Phil Mickelson can be bought.
This guy's got to have a lot of problems.
Boom, let's buy that guy.
He's a big name.
Boom.
Here's a couple hundred million.
Good, good, good, for you.
Kepka.
Good.
And then there's names after names.
You're a big golf guy, exactly.
Who can be bought?
Who can be bought away from the PGA?
The way that I'm processing this is like, you know, what China has done in the NBA, why, you know, LeBron takes a lot of heat and a lot of the NBA players, why they don't speak about what's going on in China and the totalitarian state that's going on there and the Uyghurs that are forced to do whatever are allegedly they have to do.
There's a whole lot of TV money.
Exactly.
So, you know, so basically, I think Saudi Arabia sort of took the blueprint of what China has done with the NBA and said, all right, let's do a little golf league here and let's see how many players we can purchase.
So Live Golf is a Saudi company.
It's a Saudi company.
Okay.
Exactly.
And, you know, players are for hire.
And Tiger Woods, they said, all right, he's the biggest name in golf.
How much is it going to cost to buy Tiger?
And allegedly, that number is going to be more than 800 million because he said no to that.
Interesting.
So when they throw a B on there, is Tiger going to say yes?
Is he going to say no?
We'll see what happens.
And Greg Norman, the shark, right?
I think he's what the director of operations, what is his name?
He made him CEOs ago.
Yeah.
Okay.
So then obviously there was a lot of backlash last week at Trump's golf course because they hosted, I think, a big Live event.
And you had a lot of 9-11 descendants, right?
Advocates basically saying, all right, I mean, some stuff was declassified recently about Saudi Arabia and basically their role in 9-11.
And it wasn't pretty for Saudi Arabia.
And then you can throw on top of that the whole Jamal Khashoggi thing, you know, blood on the hands.
What, you know, how much does it cost for you to be bought?
I think is the big question here.
That's right.
So, I mean, you're a golf guy.
What's going on?
Yeah, what do you think is going on here with Live Golf and Tiger?
So there's a couple of things that are going on.
First of all, the PGA Tour has always been heavy-handed.
And whenever you have a monopoly, whether it's the NFL, the NBA, or Major League Baseball, you always have these conflicts between players.
And the players associations, they always unionize versus the so you have the owners in the stadiums on this hand, and then we have the players associations on this hand.
And the TV money goes over here, and then they give them contracts to play.
Well, it's that way in golf, too.
And the interesting thing about it is the PGA Tour has been kind of heavy-handed, and they've been inconsistent on things.
Dustin Johnson was a very, very popular golfer who flunked three drug tests that we now know for using Coke.
And instead, they said he's taking a six-month leave of absence because he hurt his back jet skiing.
And everybody in the tour was like, what sort of BS is this?
Why can't we just come out and say he failed the drug test?
Any drugs or performance-enhancing drugs?
We don't want them in our sport, including recreational abuse drugs.
So there's always been this thing with the PGA, similar to the way the NBA sometimes or NFL will suspend this player, not that player, when things happen.
And so it opened the door for a competitive series.
And they had big Saudi money behind them that says, tell you what, there's no monopoly.
PGA Tour players get to play in the British Open, the Open.
You don't have to be a member of the tour.
You're invited to the Open.
You're invited to the U.S. Open.
You're invited to the Masters.
Those are not PGA Tour events.
They're all independent, the majors, except the PGA.
And so finally, the pot boils over.
And they're like, well, what if we got a bunch of money and started a competing global league?
And what if we paid people to come into the league so we could prime the pump and get some people here?
And that's what's happened.
Big names, right?
And it happens to be, it comes with Saudi Arabia and the underlying social things that people know about.
But that's what's happened.
They've tried to compete a competitive league and they've paid some big appearance fees.
By the way, appearance fees have been around in tennis forever.
The Joker gets $3.5 million to appear at certain tournaments that are not mainstream.
Here's what Tiger said.
Let me just read what Tiger said.
Okay.
So in other words, like to really compare, Paul just said something very interesting.
He says, golf is like the Jake Paul of the golf world.
Okay, so they're kind of cutting the big checks is what they're doing.
And here's a comment from Tiger Woods.
I'll just read it.
He said, at 2022 Open Championships, he was asked about joining Live.
He said, I disagree with it.
I think that they've done is they've turned their back on what has allowed them to get to this position.
I know that the PGA Tour stands for.
I know what the PJ Tour stands for and what we have done and what the Tor has given us, the ability to chase after our careers and to earn what we get and the trophies we have been able to play for and a history that has been part of this game.
This is his comments when he turned down $700 or $800 million.
Tom, when you hear that, no one tiger.
What do you think about Tiger saying something like that?
Well, I think Tigers had his own set of headlines for which he could have been suspended in many sports, unfortunately.
And Tiger is just saying, don't bite the hand that feeds you.
We don't need change.
That's all he's saying.
That's all he's saying.
He's also worth a billion dollars.
So it's easy if you're worth a billion dollars to kind of turn down a however many hundred million.
And that if you're Bubba Watson's point.
Right.
And so if you're only worth a couple million bucks and you've been working your ass off your whole life and you're 48 years old, whatever your number is.
Or you're 35 years old and you're number 25 in the world.
You've gotten up there to that level and they're going to offer you a walk across appearance fee of $20 million part of the tour.
You look at it and you say, wow.
But at the end of the day, it just comes down, can you be bought?
Can you be bought?
I don't think.
And I don't know if there's anything wrong with that.
It's, do you want to, well, wait a minute.
Well, is it?
Is a professional athlete taking the biggest contract on the table being bought?
That's what I was about to say.
Define being bought.
Well, being bought is suggesting that there's some major objective ethical issue with it.
Well, I mean, if you're American, as an example, like you did hear the news about all the people protesting at Trump's golf course in New Jersey.
You heard about this, no?
Yes.
No.
Okay.
So, all right.
Over the last week or so, I mean, we've all known that Saudi Arabia has played some sort of role in 9-11.
You've heard this, right?
Well, many of the people who committed it, I know, were Saudi nationals.
Correct.
The government, I'm not aware.
I haven't looked into all that.
But apparently now they full-on came out and they said, no, the government did have a role, straight up.
This is not my opinion.
This is what is going out circulating.
So, and then you throw on the Jamal Khashoggi thing, right?
So that's the question.
I know you're Saudi, so this is like...
I'm not Saudi.
No, you didn't.
Then you live in Saudi Arabia?
I live there, man.
I'm not Saudi.
Okay, well, you defend Saudi.
Don't put words in my mouth, please.
But Zubi, you came out and you said that you like Saudi Arabia more than America or more than New York City.
No, I didn't say that.
What are you talking about, bro?
That was the whole clip that went by.
New York City, not America.
Okay.
Yeah, man.
I said New York City.
I apologize, but I did say that.
But you were defending.
I think Saudi Arabia more like the New York City, easily.
Correct.
But a lot of Americans would disagree with you, bro.
But they've never been to it.
Correct.
But I don't think their people are clamoring to go to Saudi because of what we've assumed about Saudi Arabia.
Bringing it back to the Gulf situation is, you know, people are very uneasy with Saudi Arabia, especially with their role in 9-11 here.
So that's the story here.
I mean, nobody's, nobody, if the UAE started this, nobody would be talking smack about this, right?
If the country of Jordan did this, it's because of the connotations with Saudi Arabia.
Yeah, but this is the same thing.
Saudi Arabia had a role in 9-11, period.
Full stop.
So if you're American, you're probably going to have an issue with Saudi Arabia.
And I get that there's some sort of a fringe ally, whatever, you know, they're opposite of Iran.
Who does Saudi Arabia buy all their weapons from?
United States.
Okay.
Exactly.
That's why I said there's some sort of fringe ally.
This is the fucking debate, bro.
This is the debate.
I mean, it's like people are so inconsistent.
What bothers me is like the inconsistency on these things.
Well, it's because Saudi Arabia is inconsistent.
On one hand, they'll buy weapons off us and they'll be our ally.
But on the other hand, there's a report that comes out and it says that the government did have a role in 9-11.
Well, look, Greg Norman made a really good point.
And I watched his interview and people said, well, that's really, you know, apples and oranges.
No, it wasn't.
He pointed out that one of the top three sponsors this year in the LPGA is Aramco.
Whoops.
Wait a minute.
Where are they?
Saudi Aramco.
Correct.
And he pointed out, he said, take the top 10 advertisers or something from the PGA and look at how many of them are energy or massive banking consulting companies that have massive, not just a couple million dollars, but massive economic relationships with Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, KSC and the government for years and years and years.
Not just that they did a deal this year, but they've been this.
It says, so why is it so bad that you've got royal money and country money coming out to create this golf league when sponsors here, you know, are they real high-end moralists?
Are they turning a blind eye or are they just doing business?
These people are the inconsistency is ridiculous.
What about China?
How much business, how much stuff is everything's made in China?
Everything's bought.
Like if someone was to even attempt to be moderately consistent on this, then you can't, you kind of can't really do anything.
And this is one of the sort of saddest things about the world is I often think, this is kind of getting a little philosophical, but I often, I'm intrigued by the concept of what I would call complicity with evil, right?
Because unfortunately, it's impossible for any of us, just by paying taxes, just by living, just by buying things, there's a degree of complicity with things that we all have moral and ethical issues with, right?
We all have smartphones, right?
Where is the mining of some of the materials that are used for smartphones, coal tannites?
Like everything you buy, right?
You're buying something from, you're buying Nike shoes or the Foxconn factory electronics, right?
Like whatever you're buying, there is somewhere down the line, most likely something you have an ethical issue with.
Factory farming, like everything, even just paying taxes, even the way your own government spends money, right?
You pay your taxes and then they go and start some foreign war that you are completely opposed to, whether it was Iraq in our lifetime, like all these military interventions.
And it's just messy.
It happens on a governmental level.
It happens on an individual level and so on.
And I'm a big fan of doing my best to try to reduce what I'd consider my complicity with evil.
It's actually part of a reason why I tend to lean more libertarian on many things because I'm like, man, I don't want it's one thing taxing me and those taxes are going towards schooling or helping homeless people or helping widows or so on.
It's another thing taxing me.
And then you go and you spend that money on some crap that I totally, totally disagree with and have no say in.
So I think all of this stuff is very, is very, very messy and it's confusing because you've got, we know what the CCP is up to.
You've already talked about because they're literally got concentration camps, literally, right?
Saudi Arabia has its sins.
Russia, every country has its sins.
And America has it.
Western countries have their sins too, but they're all working.
It's so complicated.
That's the thing with me.
So when I see stuff like this, I'm kind of like, well, I think each individual should make their choice.
I think if Tiger Woods is like, you know what, I have an ethical issue with this.
The same thing happened, by the way, I know, because they did the Crown Jewel WWE events in Saudi Arabia over the last couple of years.
And some of the wrestlers were like, you know what?
I don't want to participate in this event in Saudi Arabia.
I have some kind of ethical issue with this.
I'm going to step aside for this one.
Other wrestlers were like, you know what?
Some of them thought completely differently.
Some were like, you know what?
Actually, this is an opportunity to look.
Look, the country is becoming, the idea of even having a WWE event in Saudi Arabia 10 years ago was absurd.
It wouldn't have happened.
So their country is actually liberalizing and opening up in various ways.
And they're like, okay, this is an opportunity to use our talents to help open things up.
And then later down the line, you know, it's going to be a process.
And by the way, I think people often forget one more thing.
One more thing.
My brain is jumping around everywhere because it's such an interesting topic to me.
I think people also forget that countries take time to get to places.
Where was the USA in 1922?
Right?
Where was the USA even?
In the middle of the Great Depression.
Yeah, but I mean, from a social, from a social standpoint, you had the freaking KKK, millions of KKK members running around, people getting lynched.
Like 100 years, like stuff was bad.
Like countries take time.
Like history is dirty.
History is messy.
It's violent.
It's nasty.
You've had genocides.
You've had wars, all of this.
And countries change and they progress and things are not stagnant.
Where things are right now is not where they'll be in the future.
So I do think that many Westerners in Western countries, despite all their own sins, which I won't even get into, oftentimes they're like, okay, well, we're here right now in 2022.
I think super woke people especially have this problem.
And so we want to like snap our fingers and expect everywhere else around the world, across Africa, across Asia, across the Middle East, like they should all just be, they should all just be like us.
Get on our level.
Just are like this.
And I'm like, bro, but 20 years ago, like, you know, take a topic like, I don't know, easy one, gay marriage, right?
20 years ago, your opinion and the general opinion on the same is this exact same thing, the view is in Nigeria, right?
So you're here now trying to like pressure these countries and push, oh, they're so backwards.
Like it's like, bro, like 20 years ago, that wasn't even the opinion here.
Let's be real.
So why are you like expecting, okay, well, this thing changes here.
We should snap our fingers.
And by magic, all the billions of people in the world just suddenly shift views that they've held for centuries.
It's like, it's a messy one.
So I've said a lot there.
I've got a lot of thoughts on it, but I just think it's a complicated thing.
I would say it's actually very simple.
They have competition.
And PGA has had a monopoly for a long time.
And there's never been a second league to compete against them.
Look, we're in the insurance industry.
Let me tell you.
I wish you knew how much competition we've had every freaking day that we got to figure out a way to improve.
Everybody's like, well, how about that podcast, this podcast, that podcast?
What if this guy?
What if that guy?
Look, if you have a message, we started with zero subscribers and audiences showed up because we had to get better.
If you don't get an audience, you're not interesting.
The audience will say it.
You can try to do whatever you want to do.
People can say whatever they want to say about Mr. Beast or people can say whatever they want to say about PewDiePie or Rogan.
They are interesting and people want to hear what they have to say.
And there's competition.
Today, you know how many podcasts there is today?
Do you know how many podcasts there is today worldwide?
Million.
400 million podcasts today.
400 million.
It's a massive number worldwide.
In the U.S., I think.
I'm sorry.
In the U.S., there's 4 million podcasts.
In the U.S., there's 4 million podcasts.
You got 4 million podcasts to choose from.
Okay.
400 million.
No, no, no.
In U.S., the number I'm giving you is.
No, U.S., 400 is an inaccurate number.
In U.S., there's 4 million podcasts.
Okay.
How many podcasts you got to choose from?
Oh, my God.
Like, imagine how competitive that is.
So PGA Tour is upset because there's going to be one other golf competition for you.
I'm sorry, PGA.
You know, you have now somebody that you're competing against.
So, if they can pull it off, you know, great.
Look what Dana White said.
Dana White says the best thing when Jake Paul says stuff to him.
You know what he says?
Good.
You want to pay him better?
Start a league.
No one's stopping.
Start a league.
Go for it.
If you want to start a league and compete against us and pay people better, start a league.
See how you can do it.
Go see how many have tried.
So if Liv thinks they can do it better and they think their method of doing this is by cutting the big checks that you got oil, and you go get a badass guy like Greg Norman who is going to be making these calls to them.
All right.
See how it works out.
It may or may not work out.
Props to Tiger for saying, Yeah, I'm not taking it.
And he chose this position that he chose, but you cannot make this about Saudis are linked to 9-11 because the moment you play that card, you're messing yourself up because the game of hypocrisy is going to come back and catch up to you, man.
The game of hypocrisy is not a good game to play.
You can sit there and try to judge people the moment you play the judgment game.
First thing that happens is if somebody like, you know how they say, well, do you realize what you did when you were you did this and you did that and you did this?
All the person has to say is, I'm sorry, for everybody watching, if you ever went to high school with this guy or college with this guy, can you please email us whatever you have on this guy?
Are you okay with that, Mr. Reporter?
Well, no, no, no, no.
Okay, then listen, maybe like chill out.
We all got stuff in the skeletons in a closet and we've all made mistakes.
Kind of relax and let's compete and see who's going to get better.
And then if you got a better argument, I'd live more power to you.
You don't?
You don't.
Trump tried to start a league, NFL.
Who's the one player he picked up?
Do you guys remember?
Steve Young.
Who else did he pick up?
The name that now is running for senator.
Herschel Walker.
Herschel Walker.
It was the biggest thing when Trump started a football league.
New Jersey Generals.
And he went and brought Herschel Walker.
And Herschel Walker said no to the NFL, but he said yes to Trump.
Why?
Because they paid better.
So Herschel Walker is a guy that's for sale.
And then he went there and he's like, you know, I want Trump.
You failed.
I'm going to go to the NBA and to the NFL.
And then, so this is not easy to do.
There's a lot of XFLs out there.
People have tried.
ABA was out there.
Julius Irving used to be part of ABA before NBA.
Bunch of guys played for ABA.
So we're going to find that if they can compete.
Here's the truth.
It's going to take a lot more than money to be able to compete against the PGA.
A lot more money than that.
So we'll see if they'll pull it off or not.
Anyways, it's definitely interesting.
It's more interesting.
They're not cutting players.
All the players are getting paid.
They have teams.
You're bringing hot young names.
You're changing up the format.
It's not boring old PGA tour.
They're going to cater to the young audience and they're going to pull it off.
They will pull this off.
You know what I like about this, Tyler?
You know what I like about this?
I agree.
You look like you could be the nephew of Greg Norman, by the way.
It's like, is there a relation there where you're defending them or maybe a little bit of Saudi with your beard that you got?
No, I used to play a lot of golf, man.
I'm a big fan of the sport, and I think the PGA is boring.
I think it's very hypocritical of Tiger as a billion-dollar athlete to sit here and criticize these guys.
Imagine you're Pat Perez on tour for 20 years.
You're traveling around the country.
You're paying your caddy, you're paying to ship all your stuff.
And now you can go to a group where you're getting paid every event.
48th last place makes 120 grand per event.
I love it.
That's the point.
Go do it.
See how you do.
I'll play it.
Go do it.
See how you do it.
Right.
See if you pull it off.
120 grand for coming last.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Let's go.
You have to be in like the top 30 in a PGA event to make to make any money.
Let's talk about you, Tyler.
With your permission, can we talk about Geico?
If that's okay with you, let's go talk about Geico.
Let's go talk about Geico.
Okay.
So Geico closes all California offices, lays off workers.
Okay.
They've reportedly closed all their 38 of its agent offices in California, laid off hundreds of employees, and will no longer sell insurance through telephone agents in the state.
California can still obtain Geico policies in the state, but will only go through a computer or mobile service, posing a challenge for those who are not technologically proficient.
California has a strong insurance market, more than 130 companies competing for consumers, private passenger, auto business, and more than 70 companies writing homeowners insurance.
The California Apartment Insurance said we encourage consumers to look at their options for coverage in California competitive marketplace.
So now, why did Geico leave?
Geico's name is not a small name.
They're everywhere.
Branding, they're commercial, they're gecko.
They've made some of the funniest commercials.
What are you doing leaving the state of California?
You're in the insurance business.
Why do you think this is happening?
I have zero clue why Geico sounded into this.
All I know is that a lot of companies are cutting staff these days.
We've seen that Robin Hood just cut a bunch of staff.
Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg has come out and said his staff.
There's something going on in California, though, that's for sure.
Is that where you're going with this?
Yeah.
Listen, the question, this is what's unique about this article.
It didn't say GEICO is shutting down 78 offices nationwide.
Okay.
It says they're shutting down all of their offices in one specific state.
Why?
Why are you only closing all of your offices?
It didn't even say they're closing 38 of their 92 offices in the state of California.
It's saying they're closing all 38 of it, offices in California.
Is the climate bad in California?
Are you choosing to leave?
Is the regulation just not worth it?
Are the taxes just not worth it?
Is the cost per lead you're getting that you have to pay the commission for the agents to make money for the lease you're paying for the building to get the customer support to be there and then have to go through the loopholes that the state of California offers just not worth it?
I don't know.
But this story, that title right there, says a lot.
Geico has closed all 38 of its locations in California.
Does not say any other state and doesn't say a percentage of their offices.
It says all.
That makes you think.
Tom, what do you think?
I think it's a business environment in California because Geico is not leaving.
Geico is continuing to service and to sell to consumers in the seventh largest economy in the world, California.
So they're not leaving.
They're not leaving.
They're just saying it is hard to do business here in California.
And you know what?
I think it could be a combination of or all the reasons Pat just said.
And they're like, you know what?
We're out of here.
But also, I take a look through the between the lines really quickly.
Hundreds of employees will no longer sell insurance through telephone agents in the state.
Could it be that finding that being able to pay people to be a telephone agent in California does not match with the cost of living in California?
Maybe they can't find enough of these agents.
I don't know.
But what this says to me, hey, we're still going to sell this online, but we're not going to have offices in California.
I think it means the California business climate was difficult.
They still want the business from the seventh largest economy with the greatest automobile culture in America.
What are they doing?
Of course they want that market.
Yeah, I think where you're basically saying this is a metaphor for why you left California.
You're in the insurance business here.
I mean, I'm reading between the tea leaves here.
There was a reason you left California.
It's between the lines and reading the tea leaves.
Yeah, both of those things.
Between between the lines and smoking some tea leaves.
Speaking of the leaves.
There must be, exactly.
There must be a reason.
No, we didn't do this.
Taxes, regulation is ultimately why you left California.
But what I'm trying to say to you is we didn't leave California.
So if I. You're saying that California left you?
No, no.
He's saying we don't permanently shut down and can't write new policies in California.
An agent told a reporter on Thursday.
So an agent who worked for GEICO, that's 38 offices.
I don't know how many hundreds of agents.
But an agent said, I can't no longer sell GEICO in the state of California.
That's like PHP saying, hey, to all the people that are in California, you can no longer sell in California.
Why would a company this size shut down a state that's the sixth or seventh largest economy in the world?
Why would you do it?
That's what I'm interested in knowing.
Because there is a, you know, like the note came out.
Shakira's getting a divorce.
Her and her husband are getting a divorce.
Remember that?
And then a month later, the story comes out and says what?
Taxes.
The guy checked.
Eight years going to jail for taxes.
Okay.
So you're like, oh, what happened there?
Okay.
You know, because if you're married, you got tax issues.
Who's linked to the tax issues if you're married?
Both of you.
If you're divorced, is it?
So you don't know.
Maybe we're not going to know why Geico left California.
All I'm saying is, why is a company as big and proud?
You know who owns Geico?
You know who's the biggest shareholder in Geico?
It's Buffett.
So you think Buffett, you know, like, I don't know.
I just think there's got to be something going on there with the climate that's getting somebody like this to say we're leaving the sixth largest economy.
And who's got to get you to think about that?
Pat, that's a great point.
And who runs to the microphone?
The California State Department of Insurance.
And it says, hang on, everything's okay.
We encourage consumers to look at their options for coverage in California's competitive marketplace.
That's kind of the way that quote-unquote Kermit Rogue just goes, that's a freaked out bureaucrat saying, everything's cool in California.
We got all these insurance companies.
No problem.
You've got a lot of choices.
You know, they're out there running out there saying everything's cool.
Why is the state running out to say all is well when a company moves?
The answer is, I think it was the regulatory environment.
That's my guess.
What's so interesting about all these conversations is they're all really about competition, right?
It's competition because this is insane.
This is what's happening playing out right now in the USA, especially over the past three years, is just competition, right?
People migrating and moving to where makes sense.
California is losing people.
Florida is gaining people and so on and so forth.
And so to me, it's interesting.
You know, I feel bad for the people who end up kind of just casualty.
Like this, how many people just lost their jobs from this?
Right.
Like that, that sucks.
But I do think in the long term with all of this stuff, it's going to be really interesting to see where it all goes.
I think we're at such a transition point right now in our countries in so many ways.
And it's scary and it's unnerving and it's freaking a lot of people out in many ways for many different reasons.
But I think that in the long term, it's going to be, it's going to be interesting just to see where it lands and see where stuff is in 10 years from now.
It'll be really interesting.
It's going to be.
We'll see what's going on.
But all I know is, you know, this is a little bit strange when somebody as big as Geico, as profitable as Geico, leaves the biggest economy in America.
What are you doing?
Leaving that place.
It's a very strange move to leave.
You got so many potential customers that can no longer be written by agents.
This is a very, very weird move.
And it's terrible for the Department of Insurance.
By the way, let's change transition.
Let's go into a different topic, Zelensky.
Okay, so report came out.
Deep mistrust has developed between White House and Zelensky.
This is a hot air story.
An ominous detail is buried in Tom Friedman's column.
This is a guy who had lunch at the White House with Biden less than three months ago.
The timing of Pelosi's visit could not be worse.
Dear reader, the Ukraine war is not over.
And privately, U.S. officials are a lot more concerned about Ukraine's leadership than they are letting on.
There is deep mistrust between the White House and President Zelensky of Ukraine, considerably more than has been reported on.
And there's a funny business.
There's funny business going on in Kiev.
On July 17th, Zelensky fired his country's prosecutor general and the leader of its domestic intelligence agency, the most significant shakeup in his government since the Russian invasion in February.
It would be the equivalent of Biden firing Merrick Garland and Bill Burns on the same day.
But I have still not seen any reporting that convincingly explains what was that all about.
It is as if we don't want to look too closely under the hood in Kiev for fear of what corruption or antics we might see when we have invested so much there.
That's a very well-written article, by the way, that makes you think about what's really going on over there.
Tyler, I'll go to you first.
What do you think is going on with this?
I think that the White House is exactly what it says.
They're terrified to see that Ukraine is exceptionally corrupt, that it's never been a true democracy, that it's always been an oligarchy, and it's always been exceptionally corrupt.
It was what, the third most corrupt country in the world?
Like they rank these things, and it's always been hugely corrupt.
And we've now sent them, what, $51 billion, $52 billion?
And they know they fucked up.
They don't want to look.
They're afraid of it.
But then Ben Stiller says Zelensky's his hero.
He flew out there and said, Yeah, you two did the concert in the subway.
This thing's been so weird.
Zelensky's had Russian assassins after him since the war started, but he can do his shoot with Vogue.
You've got people going to the beach.
It's weird, man.
It's one reason why I've been very silent since this whole thing kicked off, because from day one, it's just struck me as weird.
I don't get what's going on.
And again, this comes back to a point I was making earlier, which is with this situation and so many others, I think oftentimes people conflate governments with the people, right?
So when someone even says, I stand with Ukraine or I support Ukraine, what does that mean?
Or if someone has, you know, says they don't like the USA or they don't like Saudi Arabia or whatever it is.
And I think it's always a mistake to conflate governments with the people of a country.
I think anyone who's traveled knows these things are very, very different and that the CCP is not representative of Chinese people in general.
The U.S. government absolutely is not in a, you know, I think virtually every American, I feel like every American I've met is like a, is better than the top people in the government and so on.
Like, so the notion that the government and the people are the same thing is very messy.
So I think with this situation, it's been confusing because of course you have all the all the nonsense in social media, but when someone criticizes or is critical of Zelensky or the Ukrainian government or says they're corrupt, right?
People automatically jump, oh, so you're pro-Putin, you're pro-Russia, you don't care about the Ukrainian people.
It's like, no, you can totally care about the people who have been killed, injured, displaced from their homes, etc.
You can have complete compassion for those people, but you can also recognize, okay, at a governmental level here, there's something weird going on here.
You've got that whole Azov battalion in there and you've got actual neo-Nazis who are fighting in the war.
I don't know all the details, but it's messy.
And I think people try to really simplify it and just be like, okay, either you're pro-Russia or you're pro-Ukraine.
And it's just like, well, what does that even, what does that even mean?
I think we're so quick to label, all right, Putin's the bad guy.
So those guys must be the good guys.
It's, you know, it's, there's a lot of gray areas what you're talking about.
There's more than meets the eye.
Everyone wants to label Russia the bad guy, and then Ukrainians are the good guys.
So Zelensky is the face of Ukraine, you know, good-looking young guy, what have you.
So he's the good guy.
But I think what we're learning is maybe there is sort of a lesser of two evils thing.
Russia can be the bad guy.
Putin can be the bad guy.
But at the same time, Ukraine Zelensky can still be corrupt.
Like Tyler was talking about.
So this could be a mob war.
Yeah, I mean, it's just not.
It's not a black and white thing.
A bad mob and a less bad mob.
And I don't speak on it too much as well because I'm aware that this stuff has been going on for decades.
These countries have decades of history.
And I'm very far.
There's people who didn't know what Ukraine meant was.
Right.
Well, Pat, do you remember when we had Oliver Stone here?
Yeah.
Do you remember the conversations there with what he was talking about?
Very different perspective.
Yes.
And it's not this perspective you're going to hear from mainstream media.
People were upset about what he was saying.
So, look, I mean, when this thing, but the whole thing with timing is what the writer is making you think.
Because while this is going on and what Ukraine is to Russia is what Taiwan is to China, the closest correlation, and you go during this time, I don't know.
It's kind of a, you know, it's kind of interesting what's going on over here.
One thing I've been thinking about a lot over the last few months, and people have brought this point up.
I'm not the only one, but I think on a world level, the USA, certainly from a governmental perspective, is looking weak and incompetent right now.
And I think that was massively exemplified by the, people have already forgotten about the Afghanistan pullout last year.
I mean, that was a complete catastrophe.
And I think that with this, you know, I don't even want, I don't want to be that guy who's, I do wonder, I do wonder, would all of this have happened under Trump?
Would Russia have invaded Ukraine?
Would China be making the moves it's making now?
I doubt it.
It's conjecture.
I don't know, but I think that the USA, I think with Biden, it's looking weak.
I mean, you've got dudes in dresses like in the in the cabinet.
You've got diversity highs.
They're military is putting out woke ads and whatever.
I think if I were in China or I were Russia and I was like some general or something, I'd be looking over the U.S. and being like, okay, okay, right.
Don't interrupt your enemy when they're making a mistake, right?
Like it's just looking soft and weak.
The USA is not looking as strong on national stage, as strong and as competent as it did previously, whether it's under Trump or under Obama or under Bush or so on.
And I think that China and Russia are seeing that.
And I would assume that's why some of these moves are being made at this point, because the administration is just looking weak.
I mean, the president can't string sentences together.
Greatest motivational speaker of all time.
So you got to give credit with credits too.
Okay, we got a couple minutes left.
Which story do we want to go into right now with what we got going on?
Since you're talking about Robin Hooker.
Since we're talking about California, what is going on with all the drug stuff?
Oh, do you want to talk about the drug stuff?
Okay, California to fund heroin injection sites in LA, Oakland, and San Francisco.
Okay, what a brilliant strategy.
So let's cover this one here to see what they're doing there.
A bill passed Monday in the California state legislature would enable LA, Oakland, and San Francisco to open heroin injection sites for drug users.
The bill would authorize cities and counties to establish safe consumption sites where addicts could use illegal narcotics under supervision.
Those excess in the hygienic space supervised by trained staff guys, they're trained, could consume pre-obtained drugs.
Program staff would be trained to administer an opioid antagonist in the event of an overdose.
Under federal law, it is currently a felony to operate a space to distribute or use a controlled substance.
President Biden co-authored the federal state statue during his time as a senator.
How do you even respond to this, react to this article?
So you can illegally buy heroin on the corner and then walk into a safe space where they're going to give you a clean needle and a iodine or an alcohol kit.
For your point of injection.
Okay.
And by the way, the opioid antagonist in modern parlance, that's like an EpiPen.
Like when people have, like when people have allergies and you have to carry the EpiPen, like a child with peanut butter or a Bee Sting.
It's a big adult version of that.
Oh, you're having a, I haven't a, oh, the guy's having an overdose.
Hit him with that.
Narcan, right?
Yeah, exactly.
Similar.
Exactly right.
Hit him with that.
So it just is shocking to me.
It's, it's, this is really shocking.
Why, why would we help to perpetuate someone's situation with such a drug like heroin?
And Bad Brown is the hardest to kick, you know, as they refer to heroin.
This is what they call their harm, so-called harm reduction policies, isn't it?
Have you guys read us?
But where's the methadone helping these people maybe to get off it back to some other place?
No, no, have you guys read San Francisco by Schellenberg?
Michael Schellenberger.
Have you read that book?
I've not read it, but I've seen a lot of the stuff he's.
Yeah, I'd really recommend reading that book because I went to California for the first time in my life in 2019.
And I was shocked by LA and San Francisco.
I saw stuff in those two cities I'd never seen anywhere else in any city in my entire life.
And this is 2019 and stuff in many ways has worsened since then.
But those places are not normal.
My mind was blown.
I was so confused.
I was in San Francisco for a week and I was like interview.
I was like informally interviewing Uber drivers and everyone.
Just like, what is going on in the city?
Why is it?
Why is it like this?
I mean, I remember being out there and I was in a park.
It was 8 p.m. on a Saturday and there were like 20 people just shooting heroin in the park behind me, just casually.
I was like, I've never seen that before, just out there in the open.
People are walking past, going out to clubs, going to restaurants and whatever.
It's just people doing heroin.
I was like, this is not normal.
And then I was so intrigued by it.
And I got led to this book and I was reading about it and the history and why the policies are like this and so on.
So this does not surprise me in the slightest, but it's insane.
These places, I've described California as a beautiful place run by complete idiots.
I think it's run by complete crazy people with no grasp on reality.
And it's sad.
It's sad because San Francisco is a beautiful city architecturally.
Weather in LA is fantastic.
These are cool places, but the policies are just nuts on so many levels and they just keep getting worse.
It's almost like they're trying to drive people out.
I was also back in San Francisco in 2018, 2019.
I was with my girlfriend at the time and we checked into our hotel.
Cool.
We were so excited.
We drove from LA, did the 101 highway up in California.
Yeah.
Did the drive big sur.
If you ever drift through Big Sur, it is ridiculous.
Talk about gorgeous.
Forget about it.
And then we get to say, we're so excited.
It's the New York City of the West.
And we get, we checked in a hotel and we asked the bellhop or the person at the front desk which way to go.
They go, definitely don't walk that way.
Like, because it's nighttime, don't go that way.
Go this way.
Even that way, long story short, my girlfriend, she's like, dude, we get like, what the fuck is this city?
Get me out of here.
I go, we're here for four days.
Let's give it some time.
We'll stay up tomorrow.
And we went to like Fisherman's Wharf and it was actually really nice.
But there are parts of it that are absolutely insane.
North World.
Disgusting.
Like, what the hell is happening here?
And that's the most expensive city to live in America, New York, San Francisco.
So it's like there's this ridiculous, profound wealth because of the big tech and everything that's going in Silicon Valley.
And then there's this disgustingness that's happening in the underbelly, not even so much the underbelly because it's out there in the street.
It's in the center, but it's just like this backwards thing.
And on the surface, even this story is disgusting.
So I can come in and do heroin professionally.
What a mature way to do heroin.
And I've lost some friends to overdose, whether it's opioids, whether it's this kind of crazy stuff.
And I'm trying to wrap my head around why they would implement policies like this.
And the only thing that I can really come up with is the fact that, well, these people are going to do it anyway.
Yeah.
So if they're trying to prevent deaths and overdoses and sharing disgusting needles, and if people are going to do it anyway, why not allow them to do it in a safe space?
Now, I'm not an advocate of heroin or pills or overdosing, but there must be some methodology to the madness.
Yeah, I think it's kind of, and people on the kind of far left progressives can have this type of almost like toxic compassion.
It's the opposite of tough love.
They're completely opposed to tough love, right?
It's this, but it's to the, have you ever seen those programs where someone weighs like 600 pounds or 700 and their mom is still feeding them?
Why are you feeding?
Because I, because I love him, I care for him.
They're so unwilling to enact anything that is just like, look, you can't do this.
So it's so permissive that it ends up being destructive.
Yes.
Right.
And I fully agree with you.
Yeah, it's the same.
They've done that, you know, with the shoplifting, right?
You know, you can shoplift up to $900 or cause criminal damage up to $900 and it's not a felony.
Right.
Or the way that they have the tents and people just injecting or whatever, as long as you're not, you know, physically assaulting someone.
Here's what I'm going to ask you guys.
I want to ask you guys this question.
So tell me this policy of creating a safe space for heroin addicts to go use heroin.
I want to hear from who the hell says what an honorable thing to do.
Like give me, be the devil's advocate and don't think logically.
Okay.
Okay.
And go to the person that says that maybe they lost somebody to heroin.
Or like who's going to say, man, what a great idea.
Sell me that.
Can you even do that?
Like, do you understand what I'm asking?
I think I do.
Okay, somehow you sell that.
I think I know how they come from it.
I think there's two perspectives.
There's the number one, this is where I'm not, this is one thing where I'm not sure.
I don't think the libertarian thought process really works on this one.
But number one is the whole your body, your choice.
You're not hurting it.
You're not hurt.
As long as you're not hurting anybody else, you should have the right and it should be legal for you to consume whatever you want, put whatever you want into your body.
So there's that libertarian approach of just like, well, that's up to you, should have nothing to do with the government, so on.
And then there's the more progressive side, which I believe they call these productions, sorry, they call these policies harm reduction, which is, as you alluded to, people are going to do this anyway.
So it is safer for them to be using clean needles and to have some staff in case they overdose and people who know how to use Narcan and so on.
That is, they're going to do it anyway.
So it's better for them to do it in this type of environment.
I think using the principle of charity, that's those two things combined are how they think.
This is not a crime.
This is not a crime.
This is an addiction.
It's an illness.
And we need to be kind and compassionate and take care of these people.
And that's fine.
So that's how they view it.
So, okay.
So both, is it fair to say that both Democrats and Republicans have lost people to drugs?
Yes.
Okay.
So whether you're a Democrat or Republican who lost somebody to drugs, if somebody came and said, hey, I'm going to help your kid, would you want me to help your kid, regardless of where you lean politically, I'm going to help your kid by bringing him to my house.
It's going to be safe.
I'll help them take the heroin, but it's going to be in my house in a safe place and I'll feed them.
Is that what you want me to do with your kid?
Left, right, middle, doesn't matter what you are politically.
So, do you understand what I'm saying?
So, you got a kid.
Hey, Adam, don't worry about it, man.
He's going to be able to do the heroin on my house.
It's going to be a safe place.
You got nothing to worry about.
How would you like me if you've lost?
Because a lot of these parents, every one of these people has a parent that's going on through this heroin and they made a bad mistake, bad association.
Someone's in a lot of pain watching their kids being addicted to drugs.
I've seen parents, it's you can't, we can't do nothing.
Like, they can't go to work.
You're in the middle of the day.
You're working.
All you're thinking about is my kid is a freaking addict.
Okay.
So, the only thing they're hoping, I just want my baby back.
I want my kid back.
Kids whose parents became addicts, siblings whose sibling became an addict, friends whose friend became an addict.
What do they want their friend to do?
I'll give you the policy that's coming to mind today that I think that we can all relate to.
Because I don't know a lot of people that do heroin and are addicted to opioids, but I do know a lot of people that like to drink.
And I remember in high school, there was a friend who's like, We were going to go drink beers.
You know, we were 18, 17 years old.
So, one of the dads, one of the families was like, Look, I know what you guys are going to go do on the weekends.
You're going to go drink.
You're going to have fun.
You're going to get into cars and you're going to go drive drunk.
Listen, if you're going to drink beers, I'd rather you hang out in our backyard, do it safely.
I'll make sure that everybody gets home safe.
So, I'll be the adult in the room and I'll make sure that you guys are drinking and getting home in a safe space.
And there's a part of that that I think is exactly analogous to this.
It's like teenagers are going to go have beers anyway.
Drug addicts are going to go do heroin anyway.
Let's try to implement a safeguard system so people don't fucking die.
So, we've only done this halfway because, to your point, the libertarian case, not only would we have the safe injection sites, we would be creating the drugs.
It would no longer be dirty heroin.
It would be clean, true, honest heroin.
Portugal did this.
They decriminalized heroin, okay?
In the 90s, one in 100 people was addicted to heroin.
They since decriminalized over the last nearly two decades.
The number of heroin users in Portugal has been cut by two-thirds, and drug-related deaths have plummeted from more than one a day in 1999 to 30 in all of 2016.
It's like one of those things where crazy problems might need crazy solutions.
Stuff that you think on the surface is like, what?
You're doing what?
That might be something that could work.
But because they decriminalized everything, even if you were true, pure heroin, which is very different than black tar or cocaine cut with fentanyl or any of this nonsense.
When it's actually the true drug, it's very different.
And in Portugal, you don't see all the madness you see in LA and San Francisco.
Do you know what I honestly think when it comes to drug policy?
This might be controversial to some.
I think the only things that work in practice are one or other of the extreme approaches.
Right?
No drugs whatsoever.
It's illegal.
You'll go to jail if you do it.
Yes.
Or you'll be killed or do what you want.
The extreme zero tolerance.
You know, death to drug traffickers or life imprisonment in the world.
Saudi Arabia, I think.
Saudi Arabia.
I think countries like, I think Singapore is extreme.
Is it Singapore?
It's extremely straight.
There's some just zero tolerance.
Yes.
Right?
Turkey in the 1970s.
Yes.
So in practice, that works, right?
In terms of- Or you do what Oregon did and decriminalize all drugs here in the United States.
Yes.
Or the type of Portugal, you know, just, okay, we're completely not treating this as a criminal issue.
But we're not, you know, it's not, it's not criminal.
It's not legal in that you can just like walk into the grocery store and buy cocaine or heroin, but we decriminalize everything.
You have policies and strategies and things in place to reduce the risk that someone's even going to fall into that and so on.
But the whole type of like halfway war on drugs, you know, where drugs are coming in and people are doing it, but then you're trying to, you know, locking people up for weed and you're doing this kind of halfway approach just is clearly not working.
Interesting perspective.
Yeah.
Interesting perspective.
So Zubi, tell us about your books.
Yeah, sure.
Okay, switching brains.
So I just released a children's book.
It's called The Candy Calamity.
It's a collaboration with a company in Texas called Brave Books, who put out a new book every single month.
And it's all about health and fitness and taking care of your body.
In 2019, I wrote my previous book, Strong Advice, Zubi's Guide to Fitness for Everybody.
That one's for the grown-ups.
That one's for the kids.
It's a fun story.
The whole thing rhymes as a rapper.
I had to make sure my first children's book was going to rhyme.
So the whole thing, it's a fun story.
It's beautifully illustrated.
And it's really, I'd say, for kids maybe between the ages of four and 10, would probably get the most out of it.
I think when you look at kids' books, there aren't actually that many about health and fitness, nutrition, exercise.
Why is that important?
Why is it important to take care of your body?
So I'm all about putting positive messages out there, trying to inspire and motivate people of different ages.
So that's my book.
It's available at candycalamity.com.
Strong advice is available at teamzuby.com.
So yeah, go check that out.
Gang, if you enjoyed Zuby as much as we did today, and it looks like you guys love having him on today, go support him by purchasing both of his books.
The links are there in the chat room as well as in the chat box, as well as in the description.
Go get the book.
Support Zubi.
Zubi, once again, it's always great having you on, man.
